


pick up the pieces (and go home)

by tuntekorpp



Series: gold dust woman [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angry Frank Castle, Angry Karen Page, Canon Compliant, Canon Level of Arguing, F/M, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Karen Page, Post DDS3, Pre-Relationship, post tps2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24009517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuntekorpp/pseuds/tuntekorpp
Summary: Frank Castle comes back in her life the way he first barged into it.Loudly.And with a shotgun.a post Daredevil s3 / post The Punisher s2 reunion between Frank and Karen. It goes about as well as expected.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: gold dust woman [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731568
Comments: 30
Kudos: 186





	pick up the pieces (and go home)

Frank Castle comes back in her life the way he first barged into it.

Loudly.

And with a shotgun.

Karen has tried to keep on with her life as usual since the hospital. He had been very clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, and she isn’t one to stay hung up on a desperately lost cause, even if said lost cause had held her hand and rubbed circles into her skin with his thumb and basically admitted he loves her before pushing her away as hard as he could.

She’s over it, or almost, is the point.

Life at the firm is good. Matt is getting better at letting her and Foggy into his head, Foggy is his usual amazing self, she officially has her PI license and, most importantly, they aren’t getting paid only in chicken and casseroles.

In five months they have rebuilt their friendships and their professional lives, riding on the high of sending Fisk away a second, and hopefully final, time.

They mostly have clean and simple cases that don’t require her to go full detective with a wall of madness, but the occasional dirt and grit are never too far.

The case she’s working at the moment is one of those: a nurse coming to them (on Claire’s recommendation) after being threatened as she was trying to get two of her patients, too skinny teenagers with fear in their eyes and bruises on their arms, to talk to the police. It reeks of human trafficking and prostitution and Karen is surprised there are still assholes to try it in this city. It’s like they haven’t gotten the memo that the Punisher is back in town and, believe it or not, even more violent than before. Not that she’s keeping track or anything.

The potential trafficking is the reason why she’s staking an abandoned factory, thanks to Turk’s tip. He has basically become her own personal CI, despite saying he’s going to leave town every two weeks. He never does.

She has her gun in a shoulder holster under her jacket and a camera in her hands, pointed at the side door of the factory. Her plan for the night is to take pictures of everyone going in and maybe do a little bit of breaking and entering once the coast is clear, but as someone said once, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Her night goes south real fast and she somehow ends up in the middle of a firefight with the traffickers on one side and Frank fucking Castle on the other, gesturing at her to run between two pumps of his shotgun. She doesn’t need to be told twice.

He’s right behind her as they escape, heavy fire following them. He shouts at her to get into the black truck parked in the alley ahead of her. She wrenches the door open, throws in her backpack and then herself on the passenger seat and soon they’re speeding away from the factory, a couple of hostile cars on their tail.

“What the FUCK, Frank?!” is all she can think about shouting.

“They weren’t supposed to be that many!” he shouts back, eyes darting between the road, the mirrors and her. “I didn’t pack for twenty fucking guys!”

“Oh, _that_ ’s what you think this is about?! You think I’m mad because you didn’t prepare enough to kill all of those fuckers?”

He swerves in another lane brutally enough to remind her to put on her fucking seat belt. 

He keeps glancing at her, nose scrunched up, mumbling incomprehensibly. Then, “If not that then what?!”

“Why the fuck were you there in the first place?”

He frowns, still agitated, still checking the mirrors every few seconds.

“It’s my job, Karen,” he replies and he sounds angry, like every time they have a conversation about him avoiding peace at all costs. “Look, I promise you can chew my ass all you want once we’re in the clear, alright?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, does my way of dealing with a highly stressful situation inconveniences you?”

“You put yourself in that situation! What the fuck were you doing going all PI on those guys anyway?!”

“That’s _my_ fucking job, Frank! I’m a PI!”

The frown is less angry and more confused. He turns his head to her then to the road a couple of times, looking like he wants to have this conversation face to face while also remembering that he’s driving a truck, trying to lose the assholes pursuing them and that he should really, _really_ , be watching the road.

“What—what do you mean you’re a PI?!” he shouts. “You were a reporter three months ago!”

She snorts without any hint of humor. “No, six months ago I was getting almost killed by a fake Daredevil controlled by Wilson Fisk after he had already slaughtered half my colleagues,” she says darkly.

Frank takes a sharp turn into an alleyway, speeding again once they’re around the corner and not stopping until he reaches what looks like an abandoned garage, whose door opens when he smashes a button on the truck’s dashboard.

Once inside, he cuts the engine, turns to her.

“What the hell, Karen?” She rolls her eyes. “What...what happened?” His eyes roam her face, she sees them stop on the scar left by the explosion at the hotel more than a year ago, then on the scar she got chasing a lead a month and a half ago. 

She stays silent, leans back in her seat and stares resolutely ahead. The garage door slams back down with a metallic echo. Frank is still observing her.

“You never said anything,” he says, softer than before.

She barks out a laugh. “And when would have I done that, exactly?” she says, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. “When you were handcuffed to a hospital bed, again? Or when you were telling me to get lost?”

“Karen, I—”

“No, you know what, Frank? Fuck you!” she bursts out, freeing herself of the seatbelt. “You wanted me out of your life, you have no fucking right to come barging in again when it suits you. So thanks for the ride, but I’m out of here.” 

She grabs her backpack, hopes her camera wasn’t too damaged by that entire shitshow, opens the door and jumps off the truck. When she slams the door closed, the sound echoes across the cavernous garage, but she doesn’t let herself study the room. She doesn’t want to know how Frank lives. 

She resolutely marches to the exit.

“Karen, wait.”

His voice is soft, not pleading the way she’s heard it multiple times, but soft and quiet all the same. She wishes it wasn’t stirring something deep inside her chest, but it does. She rolls her eyes, turns to see him walking around the truck.

“It’s not safe,” he says. She rolls her eyes again.

“I don’t need your protection.”

He rubs at the bottom of his face. For the first time that evening, she takes the time to take him in. His hair is short, way shorter than it was that last time in the hospital, practically shaved off, really. Only the barest hint of stubble over his cheeks and jaws. He’s not heavily bruised, but he seems tired, and someone more sympathetic would worry about the dark circles deep under his eyes, the almost gaunt look of his face. But Karen isn’t sympathetic anymore. She’s done being burned.

“They gotta know who you are by now,” he says and he sounds exhausted.

Karen steels herself against the wave of concern she can feel rising inside of her. “I can take care of myself, Frank,” she says, as coldy and detached as she can. His eyes move away from hers, fleeting around the room. His trigger finger is tapping rapidly against his thigh. “I have done just fine without you babysitting me.”

“Goddamnit, Karen!” he shouts, his eyes catching hers once more. “You got a death wish or what?”

She can taste his frustration in the air between them. She crosses her arms and fixes him, challenging him to be the first to look away. “I don’t know,” she says, weirdly calm for the circumstances. “Do you?”

His shoulders slouch down. “I don’t wanna fight, Karen.”

“Glad to hear that,” she says and turns around, walking toward the exit once more.

She hears him sigh. “They’re gonna be stalking your place.” She stops walking but doesn’t turn to him. “You can’t go there.”

She looks up to the ceiling, where exposed pipes and wires criss cross each other like a spider’s web. She bites her lower lip. 

“I’m not paying for a hotel room just because you’re paranoid,” she finally says, glancing at him over her shoulder. 

It’s his turn to cross his arms. White raised scars contrast starkly against his skin. 

“You got a friend you can stay with?”

She snorts. “I’m not endangering anyone else, thank you very much.”

“What about Murdock?” he grumbles. “Red can protect himself.”

She stares at Frank, almost impressed by his gall, and not surprised he knows Matt and Daredevil are one and the same.

“Are you _ever_ gonna stop trying to throw me at Matt?”

He has the nerve to look taken aback for a second, but weariness quickly takes over. “Just—just don’t go to your place, ‘kay?” he says, uncrossing his arms and opening the side door of the truck to grab his weapon bag. “You can stay here if you don’t wanna pay for a room somewhere,” he adds with a glance in her direction. 

She sighs. “Convenient,” she mumbles under her breath. She wants to fight him more, but rationally, she knows he’s right. In their past, his paranoia has always been justified, his decisions concerning her safety have always been the right ones, and she can’t deny that she knows it really isn’t safe for her to go back to her apartment. “Fuck,” she says softly, pushing a strand of hair back.

She takes out her phone, presses the speed dial for Matt’s number. She hasn’t moved from her spot halfway between the car and the exit door and Frank is looking at her like she’s a wild animal, like he’s waiting to see what she will be doing next and if it is okay for him to move. 

“Karen?” Matt says when he picks up. “Is everything alright?”

“Just peachy,” she says flatly. “Listen, the job tonight went slightly awry—” Frank smothers a snort at that and she glares at him.

“Are you okay?” Matt cuts.

“I’m fine, but it’s probably not safe for me to go back home at the moment.” Frank looks like thirty pounds just lifted off his shoulders. 

“Karen—” Matt starts.

“It’s okay, I found a place to lay low.”

Frank jerks his head toward the back of the garage and starts walking when she nods. 

“Are you safe?” Matt asks in her ear. She follows Frank to a door at the back.

“Yeah. I just need to ask you a favor.”

“Sure, what is it?”

Frank opens the door and they step into what could be called a loft, if one was feeling generous. There’s a semblance of a kitchen in one corner and an old shabby sofa beyond that, with crates of what is without a doubt ammunition and weapons strewn around the open space. There’s a door in the wall to her right and a metallic spiral staircase next to it.

“Could you go feed Apollo?” she asks and is met by a resounding silence. “Matt?”

“I’m not dealing with your cat,” Matt says.

She rolls her eyes. “Why?” 

“Because your cat is an asshole.”

“You should get along just fine, then.”

“Karen—”

“Nope. You’re the only one who can go there safely in case there’s actually some guys stalking the place. It’s just a fucking cat, Matt. You’re supposed to be a goddamn superhero. Act like it.”

Frank huffs a laugh as he unloads the content of his duffel bag on the crate that seems to be serving as a coffee table next to the sofa. 

“Is there someone with you, Karen?” Matt asks, suddenly more alert than he was a couple seconds ago. 

“Don’t change the subject. Feed my cat, Matt.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the line. She can’t tell if it’s because he’s trying to hear who’s with her or if he’s just resigning himself to his fate.

“Fine,” he ends up saying. “Stay safe, Karen.”

“Sure.”

She hangs up.

“So Red’s afraid of your cat, uh?” Frank says with a smile.

She glares at him. “I’m still pissed at you,” she says coldly.

A shadow passes in his eyes. “Okay.”

She puts her backpack down on what passes for the kitchen table, as well as her shoulder holster. She removes the elastic tying her hair up and shakes her head. Concrete dust and tiny bits of random debris fall from it.

“Bathroom’s that way, if you want,” Frank says, nodding to the door next to the stairs.

She looks down at the rest of her. “You got any clothes I can borrow?”

His eyes travel quickly up and down her body, probably taking in her dust covered jeans and jacket and probably sweat drenched t-shirt.

“Yeah.”

He disappears up the stairs for a few minutes and comes back with a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, as well as a couple of towels. She takes them with a mumbled thanks.

The bathroom doesn’t have a trucker stop on the highway vibe, which is surprising considering the rest of the place. Sure, it’s not a cozy and sparkly clean bathroom, but it doesn’t look like she might catch tetanus either. She turns on the water. It’s, as expected, cold. She toes off her shoes, peels off her socks, then her pants, and her jacket. More dust falls off. She grabs the hem of her t-shirt to take it off when a sharp pain on her left side stops her from lifting her arms. She gasps, bringing her hand to her side, taking support on the sink with her other hand to keep herself from sinking directly to the floor. 

“Fuck,” she pants, feeling her heart beats wildly in her chest. 

The sharpness of the pain recedes slowly, leaving behind a throbbing ache. When she removes her hand, it’s stained with blood.

“Fucking great,” she mutters. 

She looks at her side in the mirror, sees the wet stain over the black fabric, notices where the edges of it are torn and stuck in what she can see of the wound. She scans the bathroom for a first aid kit but there’s nothing in it except for the tub, the toilet, the sink and a spotted mirror.

She takes a deep breath, hobbles to the tub to turn off the water. She debates putting back her pants but the thought of grabbing them from the floor and folding herself in two quickly puts that idea into the Absolutely Not territory. She leans against the sink once more, her hand back to pressing against her wound.

“Frank,” she calls through. “Where’s your first aid kit?”

She hears footsteps coming closer to the door. “You hurt?” he asks, and she can practically see him vibrating with concern. It must be taking him a tremendous amount of self control not to knock down his own door right now. And he’s probably only restraining himself to protect her dignity, or something chivalrous like that.

She sighs. “Just come in.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He has a second of hesitation when he sees she’s half naked, but his eyes zero in almost immediately to her side. He puts the first aid kit he’s clutching with both hands next to the sink.

“What happened?” he asks as he helps her sit down on the floor with her back against the tub

“Dunno,” she says through her teeth. “Tried taking off my shirt, felt pain, started bleeding.”

He gently takes her hand away from the wound. The muscles of his jaw jump once, twice. “Okay,” he says. “It’s gonna suck.”

She glares at him as best as she can. “Yeah, no shit.”

He goes to the sink, washes his hands, grabs the kit and comes back. 

“Hope you ain’t too attached to this shirt,” he says when he takes the scissors.

“That’s a shitty pun,” she says flatly.

His eyes crinkle at the corner. “Wasn’t intentional.” He starts cutting her t-shirt away until she’s just in her sports bra with a rectangle of fabric stuck to her side. “You cold?” he asks after she shivers.

“It’s not shock.”

“Not what I asked.”

She wants to be tough and not need his help more than she already does, but the goosebumps on her skin makes it impossible to actually pretend she’s fine. “A bit,” she reluctantly answers.

He unzips his hoodie and helps her put it on. It’s soft and warm, and it actually makes her feel better. 

Frank grabs a bottle of saline solution and soaks her wound and the fabric around it. It stings, but she knows it’s nothing compared to what’s coming. He takes one corner of the fabric in one hand and puts his other hand on the unbroken skin next to the wound.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Just fucking do it.”

He rips the fabric from her wound and she can’t stop herself from screaming as he does. She feels herself slide sideways against the bathtub but his arm wraps around her and keeps her from going all the way down to the floor. She leans forward until her head meets his shoulder. She closes her eyes, trying to get her breathing under control. She hears him open something, a packet of gauze most likely, then there’s pressure against her side and she almost yells again. 

“Shh, it’s okay. I got you,” Frank says softly, rubbing her back with the hand not holding the gauze against her wound.

She inhales and exhales deeply a couple times, still not opening her eyes or lifting her head from his shoulder.

“Do I need stitches?” she asks. She’s absolutely not ready to get stitches without anesthesia, but if the alternative is to bleed out, then she doesn’t have much of a choice, does she?

Frank gently pushes her back against the bathtub again. She looks up at the ceiling and feels him remove a bit of pressure from her side. 

“So?” she asks, closing her eyes when the pressure returns.

“Still bleeding but it ain’t deep. Butterfly stitches should be fine,” he says. She exhales deeply. “Bullet might’ve grazed you. Probably didn’t feel it ‘cause of the adrenaline.”

“Great,” she mutters as she pinches the bridge of her nose.

Frank keeps his hand pressing against her and she keeps her head tipped back, eyes closed, both of them waiting in silence for the bleeding to stop. She doesn’t want to feel comforted and reassured by Frank’s presence. She wants to believe she has successfully freed herself from his influence. She hasn’t. Despite herself, she feels safe here. She could fall asleep, sitting on the tiles, his hand a flare of warmth in the cold of that bathroom. 

“How’s the pain?” Frank asks after what feels like hours. 

“Better.”

He hums. “Gonna remove the gauze and put those strips now, ‘kay?”

She glances at him and he’s looking at her. He raises his eyebrows in a silent question. She nods.

He removes the gauze carefully, so carefully it makes her feel like she’s something fragile and delicate, something to take care of and protect, but not in the patronizing way Matt has, more like she’s something precious, something that matters in Frank’s life. She closes her eyes against the tears she can feel rolling down her cheeks.

“Sorry,” Frank mutters, probably thinking the tears are for the pain, and not for the emotions battling in her chest.

She sniffles. “It’s fine, go on,” she says softly.

He cleans up the wound a bit more then applies the steri strips. Maybe she’s imagining it, but his fingers seem to linger on her skin a beat longer than necessary. As soon as she notices it, though, his hand is gone, rummaging through the first aid kit for some liquid bandage that he applies as carefully as the rest.

“It’ll keep it dry when you shower,” Frank says, then takes out some gauze and medical tape. “Put that on afterwards.”

She really doesn’t have the energy to shower right now, but if it’s between that and sleeping with concrete dust in her nose, she’s choosing showering, no matter how much she wants to just lay down and be unconscious for the next twelve to fourteen hours.

Frank helps her slowly stand up, one arm supporting her, the other hovering close, ready to catch her should she sway in one direction or another.

“You good?” he asks once she’s on her feet.

She nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

His hands stay up a few seconds longer, like he’s making sure she isn’t going to tip over.

“I’m good,” she says a bit more forcefully. 

His arms drop by his side. “Okay.” He walks to the door. “Shout if you need somethin’,” he says and closes the door behind him. 

She sighs, tension slowly leaking away. She pushes her hair back with her right hand and doing so reminds her once more of the reason why she’s in that bathroom in the first place. She turns on the water, waits for it to warm up, undresses, and steps carefully into the tub. The water soaks her hair, mixing with the dust and sweat and running down her body in dirty streaks. She tries to angle herself so that her wound isn’t directly in the spray and lets the water rain down on her. The last of the tension she was keeping in her shoulders ebbs away. Grayish—with a hint of red—water swirls down the drain.

Lathering herself in soap and shampooing her hair is more of a challenge than expected but she manages it without popping her butterfly stitches. She rinses herself quickly and steps out of the tub. She towels herself dry, doing the bare minimum for her hair one handed, then carefully pats the wound and bandages it.

Frank’s sweatpants and t-shirt are comically large on her, but they’re not covered in concrete or blood or sweat, and that’s all that really matters to her, so she rolls the sweatpants’ waist band a couple of times until it stays on her hips, slips on the hoodie back on and steps out of the bathroom with her hair rapidly soaking through the fabric of both the hoodie and the t-shirt.

Frank is sitting on the couch, a rag in one hand, a handgun disassembled on the crate in front of him. The smell of solvent and gun oil floats in the air.

“You good?” he asks, putting down the rag next to the gun.

“Yeah,” she says. “All yours,” she adds, gesturing vaguely toward the bathroom.

He nods, starts cleaning the gun with a brush. “Got some Indian leftovers in the fridge if you want,” he says without lifting his head.

She sits on a crate instead. “This is where you’ve stayed since I last saw you?” she asks, trying to keep her voice neutral.

He glances up. His eyes stay on her for a few seconds before going back to the weapon in front of him. “More or less,” he says, putting two pieces back together.

She nods, more a reflex than anything, really. “And the kid?”

He looks at her for more than two seconds this time. Is he remembering that moment in the hospital, before Amy interrupted them? Does he remember the despair with which she asked him to stop, the way he looked at her when she asked him to make that moment mean something?

He swallows. His jaw clenches as his eyes fleet around the room. “Sent her to Florida,” he says. “Got a guy there who took her in.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He rubs at his stubble. “Look. I don’t wanna fight, alright?” he says. His expression is already defeated and she doesn’t even know where this is going.

“Wasn’t planning on fighting you.”

He huffs a laugh. “Karen, come on,” he says, like she’s bullshitting him.

She shrugs. “I agreed to be here, didn’t I?”

He keeps his eyes on her and she holds his gaze, waits for him to say more, but in the end he just turns back to his gun, finishes reassembling it.

She stands up a bit too quickly and winces when it pulls on her side. Frank is still dealing with his gun, though, and he doesn’t seem to have seen her. Small silver linings. 

She sits down at the kitchen table and opens her backpack, reaching inside for her camera. Hopefully she’ll have some good pictures to compensate for the rest of that shitty evening. She flips through the pictures, zooms on faces to see if she recognizes them from her times with _The Bulletin_ , all the while acutely aware of Frank glancing up at her every couple of minutes. She keeps her focus on the viewer of the camera. She isn’t going to take the bait. 

She reviews half a dozen of pictures before he breaks the silence. 

“So. You’re a PI now?” he says from the couch. 

She barely glances up from the camera, finds him looking firmly at her, gun reassembled and discarded to the side. “Yep,” she answers before lowering her eyes to the screen again. 

Frank clears his throat. She sees him stand up from the corner of her eye. He comes to the kitchen, but doesn’t stop at the table, going to the cabinets behind her instead. 

“Coffee?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says without turning to him. She hears the opening and closing of cabinets’ doors, the rush of water, the buzzing sound of a coffee machine starting quickly followed by dripping in the pot.

“How long?” he asks, still behind her.

“Told you. Six months.”

He’s silent behind her, but she can picture him as if he was standing in front of the table. Arms crossed, jaw clenched, eyes alternating between scanning the room and staring at her. Probably confused about the whole thing more than anything else but expressing it as anger.

She turns off her camera and puts it back into the backpack. The dripping stops. There’s some ruffling of fabric, the unmistakable sound of coffee being poured in a mug, then Frank appears at her side and puts a mug down in front of her before sitting in the only other chair at the table, his own mug in front of him. He takes a sip, clears his throat. His finger is tapping against the chipped handle.

“So when you came to that hospital,” he starts, but pauses. Maybe he’s expecting her to fill in the blank. She studies the ripples on the surface of her mug, and waits. “It wasn’t—” She looks up, slowly. His finger is tapping more rapidly and his eyes are going back and forth across the table. “What—what was it?” he ends up asking. 

She leans against the back of her chair, restraining herself from rolling her eyes in frustration. “Jesus, Frank,” she lets out between clenched teeth. 

“What, Karen?” he bursts out. “Why were you there in the first place if it wasn’t for a story?”

“You were my friend!” she shouts, leaning forward and two seconds away from banging on the table. “Why is that so fucking hard for you to get?! I heard you were in a goddamn hospital and I went because I cared about you, because against my better judgment you were important to me!” 

He’s utterly still when she stops. She exhales deeply as she leans back again, her eyes on her coffee once more.

“And now?” he asks, his voice barely above a mutter, tight and strangled. 

She scoffs. “You made it pretty clear you didn’t want me anywhere in your life, so I don’t see why it matters,” she says without looking up.

“Karen.”

She silences him with a glare. “If you say it’s for my own protection you can shut the fuck up. I can take care of myself. Been doing it for a while now.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” She gestures at the room. “Because the whole ‘you can’t go home’ thing doesn’t exactly agree with that.”

He inhales sharply and looks away, his jaw clenching and unclenching as his finger taps once more against the mug. “There’s a difference between taking care of yourself and walking directly into a goddamn trap,” he says.

She tsks. “Why the fuck do you care anyway,” she mutters, crossing her arms in front of her, the sleeves of the hoodie so long the hems are brushing the tips of her fingers.

“Goddamnit, Karen,” he all but hisses, and she’s almost surprised he isn’t shouting again. “You know why. I can’t—I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t lose you,” he finishes, the anger gone, replaced by something like despair, like he’s pleading with her.

She stares at him, as harsh and cold as she can be in that moment. “You don’t get to do this,” she says, her voice low and hoarse. “You don’t get to tell me that I matter to you after you told me to stay out of your fucking life. It doesn’t work that way, Frank.”

“Karen—”

“No. You want to push everyone who ever cared about you away? Fine. Be my fucking guest. But you don’t get a say in how we live our lives after that.”

“You think—you think what? That I told you to stay away ‘cause you don’t matter?” he says and this time, his voice is rising. Good. She prefers when he’s angry than when he’s pleading. “You think it’s easy for me, Karen? You think I like it? People die when they’re close to me! I can’t let that happen again, not to you.”

It’s a replay of their fight on the waterfront, the one that ended with him kissing her cheek and leaving her in the night. This time, though, she doesn’t avert her eyes when faced with his rage. She keeps firmly staring at him, unflinching, she doesn’t soften when his voice loses its edge.

She lets the silence spread between them, a tense, uncomfortable silence. Frank looks down at the table. She doesn’t, eyes still boring into him.

“Don’t be a fucking martyr,” she ends up saying, quiet after their previous outbursts. He looks up sharply. “You’re not the only one surrounded by dead people,” she continues in the same low and calm tone.

“Karen—”

“I stopped counting. You know why? Because it was more than I had fingers. And I’m not talking about misplaced guilt here. I’m talking about more than a dozen people whose deaths I caused directly. Did I push everyone else away? I tried. And you know what? It didn’t fucking help. You still want to be completely alone? Fine. But stop telling yourself it’s for other people’s sakes when it’s so you can be fucking miserable because you don’t want to feel anything else.”

Frank's face gets hard, closed off. "Yeah, alright," he says, leaning back in the chair and rubbing at the bottom of his face. "I'm selfish 'cause I don't want people close to me to die so I get them away from harm's way. I'm goddamn selfish, you got me all figured out!" he says, loud and sarcastic. 

She keeps staring at him calmly and she thinks she should be freaked out by how calm she is while confronting Frank Castle heads on, but she isn't. She didn't flinch in front of Fisk, she isn't about to flinch for anyone else. 

"Is Russo dead?" she asks.

Frank frowns, clearly confused by the change of subject. He mumbles indistinctly before answering. "Yeah. Yeah he is."

"And the rest of the operation?"

He nods once. "Yeah."

"What about the preacher?"

He swallows. "Dealt with."

"And I already know the Irish, the bikers and the Cartel have been completely wiped out," she says. His eyes are on her, his face still hard, but he looks cautiously intrigued, even if his finger is still tapping rapidly. "So who wants your head, now?"

He inhales deeply. "You know what I do, Karen."

She huffs a humorless laugh, looks up at the ceiling, far above their heads. "Yeah. You kill people—criminals, sure—who have nothing to do with you." At the periphery of her vision, his finger stills. She returns her eyes to his. "You could've stopped. After Russo. It was over, your vengeance was over. There was no one left after you. But you didn't. You dove head first into more violence. And if people want your head now, well, you did that all on your own." 

She pauses for a breath, half expecting him to interrupt, but his face is inscrutable, there's no frown, no nostril flaring up, no muscle jumping. She's never seen him so expressionless. There's always something going on in his face, but not now, and maybe that's the sign she went too far, and yet she still presses on.

"If you really wanted to keep people who matter to you out of danger,” she says, “you'd simply stop."

Finally, he scrunches up his nose. "It's not that simple and you know it," he mutters.

"Isn't it," she says flatly.

"No. The scumbags I kill, I kill because they're dangerous, their murderers, traffickers, hell you were fucking there tonight, you saw it yourself! Am I supposed to just let them do their goddamn business even when I could stop them once and for all?"

"There are other ways," she says even if a part of her agrees with him, still. She often wishes the fake Daredevil and Fisk had killed each other, instead of knowing they're both alive, somewhere in prison cells.

Her coffee looks cold now.

"C'mon, Karen. Don't make me laugh. We both know the justice system doesn't work. Not for these guys. Look at Fisk."

She glares at him. "It doesn't mean everyone has to fucking die, Frank. People can change."

He scoffs. "You sound like Red. Without the Catholic bullshit."

"So your plan is to kill every drug dealer, petty thief and murderer you can find in New York?" she asks. He clenches his jaw. "Guess you're gonna have to kill me next," she says in a detached voice, shrugging a little, like it's no big deal.

His eyes widen. "What the fuck, Karen, don't fucking say that."

She steels herself for what she says next. "I'm a murderer, Frank," she starts and doesn't wait for him to react to continue. "I have killed people. I have emptied a clip in a man's chest in cold blood. I spent my twenties doing and dealing drugs. I'm such a fuck up that when a serial killer was after me, after he murdered everyone at my office, when I asked my dad to come to his house for safety, he told me no. He told me I deserved it. I am a fucking criminal. I just got away with it." 

"Karen—"

"See? I'm no different from the people you hunt, Frank. What are you gonna do about it?"

He stays silent, and he's still, so still it's like everything stopped inside of him, or like he's getting ready for a sniper shot. His eyes never leave hers, motionless in a way they so rarely are.

"You're different," he says, whispers, really. 

"I'm not."

"You are. Don't tell me you deserve to die." His voice cracks a little. "You don't. You really don't."

Her throat is tight, but she presses on. "By your rules, I do."

"Stop," he whispers and looks away. "Just. Just stop."

She looks down. There's a chip in the table top, a nick like the tip of a too sharp knife got stuck in the wood and took down a crescent on its way out. She has the strange urge to touch it, to feel the difference of texture between the untouched wood and the chipped part. She doesn't, not daring to uncross her arms or move in case it shatters their fragile truce.

“You don’t deserve to die,” Frank says in a broken voice. “Don’t make me say it again.”

She reaches out and touches the wood with the tip of her finger. The chipped part is rough, like a splinter waiting to happen.

Frank glances up at her, then back down to his coffee and stands up. “I’ll take the couch,” he announces, and leaves the table with his mug in hand.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s your place—”

“Karen,” he cuts, effectively silencing her. “I never sleep up there,” he says then goes to the couch. He puts down his mug on the crate and takes a weapon from his duffel, starts disassembling it.

She tries a sip from her own mug. Lukewarm. She takes it to the microwave. Frank doesn’t lift his head from the rifle. She wasn’t sure their relationship was truly dead after the hospital, but she’s certain of it now. There’s no way to salvage this mess after she threw all that in his face. It’s probably better this way.

She should go.

She takes her phone.

_There are people watching your place. I fed your monster._

The microwave beeps. She takes out the mug, tries a sip again and burns the tip of her tongue. She leans against the counter, her phone in one hand, her mug in the other and blows slowly over her coffee.

She is tempted to call Matt again and see how many people he noticed, just in case she can manage to slip by them. Maybe she should call anyway, at least to thank him. She presses the call icon and puts down her mug on the counter next to her.

“Everything okay?” is the first thing he asks.

“Yeah, I just wanted to thank you.”

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Frank perking up and looking in her direction.

“You could’ve just sent a text, it’s okay.”

“Better to hear it in person than read to you by your phone, isn’t it?”

Matt chuckles. “Yeah. I guess so.”

There’s a pause before she takes a deep breath and asks what she really called him for.

“How many people?”

She sees Frank slowly get up and walk toward her. She glances at him, more of a reflex than an intention. There’s a crease between his eyebrows and his mouth is turned down in a frown. 

She hears Matt sigh on the other side. “Two cars in the streets around your building. Two men in one car, three in the other. They’re covering both entrances, Karen,” he adds, like he knows what she’s thinking about. Maybe he does, after all he’s a blind man who can see better than most human beings. Telepathy isn’t that far fetched.

“Any sign of forced entry in my place?”

“No. I got there via the rooftops, but I haven’t noticed anything about your door or windows.

“So they’re just waiting for me.”

Frank tenses next to her.

“It looks like it, yes.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll keep you updated.”

She thanks him again, hungs up. Frank is looking at her, obviously expecting her to give him the latest news.

She moves away from the counter with barely a glance in his direction. “Five men covering both entrances.”

She goes to her backpack. She’s itching to take out her gun, to go to her apartment, deal with it herself, to be doing something instead of staying here being slowly suffocated by the tension between her and Frank. She feels his eyes following her movements. 

“You can’t go, Karen,” he says like he read her thoughts. Is she so fucking transparent?

“I know,” she says between her teeth. She takes her gun out of the holster. “You got a spare rag?”

It makes him chuckle, low and throaty and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, they could be okay one day. 

Frank sits on another crate and she settles on the couch. She rolls up the hoodie’s sleeves and disassembles her gun slowly, methodically. She takes the rag, the solvent, the oil, works on each part carefully. Somehow, it appeases her mind, the repetitive, engrained motions a form of meditation for her. Maybe it is the case for Frank too. He finishes his rifle, starts another. They work in silence, trading oil, solvent, brushes without needing to exchange words. Frank reassembles his last rifle.

“You said Fisk killed your colleagues,” he says quietly. Her hands still. She slowly looks up at him. “In the car. You said a fake Daredevil killed your colleagues on Fisk’s orders.”

She swallows. “Yeah.”

“You said he was after you.”

She nods. “Are you gonna ask me why I didn’t call you?” she asks, and she can’t hide the weariness in her voice. She doesn’t want to fight again, she’s too tired for this.

“No,” Frank says hoarsely. “Didn’t exactly give you a way to contact me after—” He clears his throat, like the memory of the hotel, of the elevator is too painful to voice. 

“You didn’t,” she agrees.

He leans forward on his elbows and rubs at his neck. When he looks back at her, he seems sad. He stares at her for a while, like he’s studying her, and she waits, looking right back at him, wondering about what he’s going to say next, if he’s going to talk at all or just get up and do something else, stay there and clean another gun from his endless supply. 

“Can I ask—can I ask what happened?” he finally says, glancing down at his hands before facing her again.

She looks away, chews on her lower lip. She hesitates for a couple of seconds, and right when Frank looks like he’s about to tell her to forget about it, she opens her mouth and it’s like a dam has been broken. 

She hasn’t really talked about it in those six months. They don’t mention it with Matt and Foggy. She’s working on mending her relationship with Ellison, but it more often takes the form of drinking whisky in his office than an open heart to heart about the hell they’ve lived through. 

She lets it all out, Fisk, agent Nadeem, Pointdexter, the grand jury fiasco, the newsroom massacre, the church and Father Lanthom. How they dealt with everything. She isn’t sure she’s making much sense, but Frank doesn’t stop her to ask for clarification. He takes it in, his eyes never leaving her face. His fists and his jaw clench and unclench with every new information.

Finally, she stops talking. It takes a few seconds for Frank to react. And when he does, he doesn’t do what she’s expecting. He doesn’t get up to pace and plot Fisk’s murder, he doesn’t immediately ask more information about Pointdexter so he can kill him. 

He stays on his crate, still staring at her. “You didn’t run away,” he says softly.

“I thought about it,” she says and wipes away the tears on her cheeks. She sniffles. “I was gonna do it.” She closes her eyes against the memory of Father Lanthom dying to protect her. “I should’ve done it.”

“‘M sorry, Karen.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t deserve any of that shit,” he says. His tone reminds her of how people speak to scared animals. “I wish I’d been there,” he says, lower than before. Something like guilt mars his face. 

She shrugs slightly. “You had no reason to.”

The guilt becomes unmistakable, accompanied by the shadow of shame, like her words brought to the surface all the things he’s been regretting since they parted ways in the elevator shaft. He rubs his jaw, takes a breath.

“Remember when you went to that radio interview? With Ori?” he asks.

She frowns, confused as to where he’s going. “Sure.”

“I was in the bunker with Lieberman. We were listening. And then Wilson called and you said he was a coward, and I knew—I knew he was gonna go after you. I just knew, Karen. And I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t.” He’s getting agitated as he tells her, like recalling the events is bringing back the anger he was feeling at that moment. “It wasn’t the mission,” he says. “We were supposed to go talk to Madani, get her to help us take down Orange. But I told Lieberman—I told him to find Wilson. He didn’t want to. It wasn’t the plan. I threw a chair in his face, asked him what he would do if his wife was threatened.”

His finger is tapping rapidly against the back of his fist. She can’t speak, still confused about the point he’s trying to make here. He stands up and starts pacing.

“He said it was different. Sarah’s his family, he said. And I said—I said you were mine.” In his voice, scared and hoarse, it sounds like a confession. “I said that nothing could happen to you. Not as long as I’m alive.”

He looks at her like he’s afraid she’s going to start yelling at him. Like he did something unforgivable. There’s too many emotions rolling inside of her, and she can’t name a single one. So she just keeps staring at him without speaking, hoping he’ll finally say something that makes sense.

He paces between his crate and the staircase, the despair on his face increasing with each step, ends up staying still at the stairs. 

“Why are you telling me this?” she practically whispers in the space between them when he doesn’t explain further.

“I said I’d make sure you’re safe,” he says in the same tone. “I said you were my family. But after Orange—after Russo, I—I left. I left. I had no intention of ever coming back.” He swallows, and she sees tears shining in his eyes. 

“You had the right to have your own life.”

He shakes his head. “You almost died, Karen. And I swore it was never gonna happen. Not on my watch. And I wasn’t there.” He shakes his head again. “I wasn’t there.”

She stands up and goes to him. “I’m not blaming you, Frank. I never was.”

An hour ago they were fighting. She thought their friendship was irreparable after what she had thrown in his face.

Right now, she just wants to hug him and stay there. He looks at her like his heart is breaking again, and she hates how familiar she is with that look. How the corners of his eyes are crinkled and tensed, as if relaxing them would let tears flow. How his chin is tight, his mouth tighter, almost trembling from the effort of staying shut. How his throat works as he swallows and his jaw clenches and—

She hugs him. 

He resists, barely, at first, then his body melts into hers, his arms going around her and holding on to her. She closes her eyes and doesn’t let go, even when her side starts hurting because she’s been stretching it for too long. She doesn’t care. As long Frank isn’t letting go, she isn’t either.

He breathes deeply against her. His hands unclench from her—his—hoodie. Everything is less urgent, desperate. She feels some tension leaving his neck and shoulders before he steps away from her. 

“I, uh,” he mumbles, head bowed down, avoiding her eyes. “I should—I should go take that shower.” He clears his throat and moves further away. He glances up at her. “Thank you.”

She watches the bathroom door close after him.

She lets out a deep sigh, pushes her hair away and rubs at her face. They’re going to be fine. Probably.

She turns back to the couch and the crate. Her gun is still waiting to be reassembled.

She takes care of it, meticulous and precise, trying to focus only on the task and not on anything else. Then she checks that everything slides smoothly and, satisfied, she puts the gun on the crate.

There isn’t much to do in that loft. If Frank keeps books, they aren’t on this level. This place isn’t a home, it’s just a shelter, somewhere he can rest and regroup. She lies down on the couch, flat on her back and mindful of her side. The wires and the pipes crossing the ceiling aren’t more interesting than the rest of the place, but she traces them with her eyes anyway. She can hear the water rushing in the next room, a constant, almost droning sound.

She closes her eyes.

“—ren. Karen.”

She doesn’t jump out of her skin when Frank wakes her up, squatting next to the couch, a gentle hand on her shoulder. His hair is wet and the place where he’s touching her is burning hot. 

“Bed upstairs’ll be more comfortable,” he says softly.

There’s no windows in the loft and her phone is back in the kitchen, so she has no idea how long she has slept. Couldn’t have been that long, but she still feels oddly exposed, vulnerable. 

She sits up slowly, rubbing the side of her face and tucking her hair behind her ear, and Frank’s hand falls away. 

“Are you insisting on me taking the bed so you can sneak out and go back to kill those guys?” she says in a voice sleepier than expected, only half-joking.

Frank chuckles. “Wouldn’t’ve woke you up if I wanted to sneak out.”

She shrugs with one shoulder. “Fair.”

She stands up carefully. “That bed better be really comfortable, Castle,” she mutters. The couch was doing the job just fine. She grabs her gun before climbing up the stairs.

The mezzanine isn’t much more furnished than the rest of the loft: a couple more crates, two duffel bags and a spartan looking twin bed, which isn’t a lot more comfortable than the couch, but it’s slightly wider and the pillow won’t give her a crick in the neck in the morning. Besides, after the day she’s had, she isn’t going to be picky about where she sleeps. 

She burrows under the covers, her gun under the pillow, and is asleep within minutes.

She fully expects to wake up to an empty loft, Frank gone on a rampage leaving only a note behind him telling her to stay put until he’s done and it’s safe. Instead, she wakes to the smell of coffee and toast. She stretches and yelps when it pulls on her wound.

“Karen?” comes Frank’s concerned voice from downstairs. 

“I’m good,” she calls. “Just forgot I’m injured.”

The only reaction she gets is a chuckle. She lifts her t-shirt and peers at the bandage. There’s a blood stain on it, but it doesn’t look like it’s fresh or expanding, so she gets up, puts on Frank’s hoodie and climbs down the stairs. 

The concrete floor is freezing under her bare feet.

“Some of that for me?” she asks as she approaches the kitchen where fresh coffee is dripping into the pot.

“Sure,” Frank says, focused on frying eggs on the stove.

She grabs a mug and after a cursory glance at the countertops and table, takes another one when she doesn’t spot one for Frank.

“What time is it?” she asks, sliding his mug next to the stove.

“Bit before eight,” he replies. “Thanks,” he mutters when he takes the mug. 

She startles when two slices of bread jump from the toaster.

“Those are for you,” Frank says.

“Thanks.”

He hums as she finds a plate and it’s strangely domestic, despite the crates of weaponry and the boxes of ammunition littering the place, her injury, or the fact that they’re in a garage backroom.

“So,” she starts as he slides fried eggs into her plate, “What’s the plan?” she asks. She sits at the table. “It should be safe for me to go back to my place now that it’s not the middle of the night, right?”

Frank snorts as he sits on the other side, setting his own plate in front of him. “Sure. Criminals are so mindful of work hours,” he says sarcastically.

She rolls her eyes. “It would be in broad daylight, Frank.”

“That’s never stopped anyone,” he says before wolfing down his eggs. 

The way he eats reminds her of the veterans that were coming to her family’s diner, back in Vermont. No matter how long they’d been out, they were all eating like they only had a few seconds to get their full meal inside of them. You can take the man out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the man. That’s what one of the usual patrons was saying whenever her mother was chiding them for their table manners.

She starts eating her own eggs before they get cold.

“Okay then. What do you propose?” she asks between two bites.

Frank downs a mouthful of coffee. “I go there, lure ’em away, kill them.”

“And I guess I’m just waiting here for you to be done in this scenario?”

“Karen—”

“I’m not a fucking damsel in distress, Frank.”

He snorts. “Yeah, I noticed.” He takes a sip of coffee. “Doesn’t mean you gotta be in danger if we can avoid it.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, there’s a ‘we’ now?”

Frank sighs. “You really want to fight that early in the day?”

She raises her chin. “No, but you’re being stupid.”

He sighs again, deeper, then looks up at the ceiling. When he glances back at her a few seconds later, she can read the resignation in his eyes, like he already knows he’s going to hate whatever she has planned. Which, he probably will.

“You’re not walking there in plain sight,” he says dejectedly.

She munches on her toast. “‘Course not. You’ll be driving.”

She stuffs her dirty clothes into her backpack, shrugs on her jacket on top of Frank’s too big t-shirt, a bullet proof vest and Frank’s hoodie and tucks her gun in her shoulder holster. 

Behind her, Frank is sliding on his armored vest.

“I still hate this,” he grumbles when they leave the loft and get into the actual garage.

“Tough luck.”

They ignore Frank’s truck and instead choose to drive to her place in the only other car present in the garage: an inconspicuous sedan that looks like it has seen better days. It’s her idea, of course. Frank grumbles about it, saying the sedan doesn’t offer as much protection as the truck.

“They know what your murder truck looks like,” she says, opening the passenger door.

“It’s not a murder truck,” he replies without looking at her.

“It really is.”

He side-eyes her across the roof and sighs as he gets into the car. She slides into her seat and slams the door after her. Frank presses the button to open the garage door, reverses the car into the alley and waits until the door is closing back to drive away.

“This is goddamn reckless,” he mutters. She snorts.

As they’re stopped at an intersection, Frank tries to grab a duffel from the backseat, twisting his arm back while still keeping an eye on the road.

“Side pocket,” he tells her when the line of cars in front of them starts moving again. 

She twists in her seat as best as she can without reopening her side and rummages through said pocket. 

“What am I looking for?”

“Ear pieces.”

She finds a plastic box the size of a wallet and inside, two pieces that look like hearing aids. 

“Take one,” Frank says and extends his hand for the other. She plops it down in his palm. 

She puts hers in her ear and adjusts the outside part so it doesn’t have hair stuck in it. It feels weird to have one ear completely stuffed, like being under water but only on one side. 

“There’s a switch on the side,” Frank says. Then he brings his hand to his ear and shows her before flipping it on.

She imitates him.

“Lieberman?” she asks.

He hums and she can hear it both in her free ear and in the tiny earbud.

As they’re approaching her block, Frank’s hands start gripping the wheel tighter, his knuckles growing white and his shoulders tense. Karen can feel her heart beating faster and harder. 

Once they’re less than a block away, Frank finds a back alley and parks the car there. 

“You don’t start moving until I tell you to,” he reminds her, his face as serious as it can ever be. 

“I know.”

“If I tell you to retreat, you retreat, yeah? Don’t play the hero.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“Karen.”

He is staring at her, waiting for her to say what he wants to hear.

“I’ll do what you tell me to.”

He breathes deeply, opens his door. “Be careful.”

“You too.”

They exit the car and Frank disappears on the nearby fire escape. Karen walks to the mouth of the alley and flattens herself against the wall, out of sight. In her ear, Frank is breathing slowly and steadily, and she can hear the metallic sound of stairs and ladder, then the rustling of fabric and the clacking of a rifle being assembled.

“You see them?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Frank answers, his voice low and gravelly. “Go.”

She adjusts her backpack, takes her gun out of the holster and into her jacket pocket, firmly holding it. She puts her other hand into the other pocket and steps out of the shadows and into the main road. She tries to walk as calmly and normally as possible, like she isn’t aware of the men stalking her apartment and ready to shoot her. She makes a point not to glance in their direction when she rounds the corner of her street. She knows Frank is somewhere up on a roof, watching like a hawk, and she’s relieved to see that the road and the sidewalks are practically deserted.

She gets to her building and opens its door, the reflection in the glass showing one of the men coming out of the car parked on the other side of the street. 

She slides into the lobby. “I’m inside,” she says and pushes the door to the staircase. “Going up.”

Next thing she hears is him shooting his rifle. She climbs up, her gun out in front of her, clearing her corners, checking the levels above her. 

“One down,” Frank says. “Where are you?”

“Halfway.”

She gets to her level just as she hears another gunshot in her earbud. She opens the door to her hallway just a few inches, just what she needs to check one side. Finding it clear, she pulls the door open slowly until she can clear the other side. 

“Almost there,” she says. “You?”

“Two down. Two taking cover. Don’t see the fifth,” he grits out. She can hear his frustration through the earpiece.

She gets to her apartment door and unlocks it as fast as possible, glancing behind her once before sliding inside silently. She closes the door quietly and creeps along the corridor wall, all of her senses tuned to hear something unusual. She barely restrains a scream when something touches her ankle. She glances down and finds Apollo rubbing against her furiously and then glaring at her when she doesn’t squat down to pet him. She mouths “sorry” at her cat who promptly turns around and trots to the kitchen. She clears the main room, then her bedroom and finally the bathroom before she allows herself to let the tension seep away from her body.

“Clear,” she says. 

“Cars got away,” Frank says. “Still no view on the fifth guy. Coming dow—”

His words are cut by a gunshot.

“Frank?” she says, already picturing him with a hole in his forehead.

“Fuck,” he mumbles and she lets out a relieved sigh. 

More gunshots follow, some closer than others. There’s some rustling, some heavy breathing, then someone is shouting and it isn’t Frank. The distinctive sound of fist hitting flesh replaces the gunshots, something cracks and she doesn’t dare say anything. It feels like an eternity before the silence comes back.

“Frank?”

She hears laborious breathing and wheezing. Something whistles regularly.

“‘M here. Fifth is taken care of.”

“You okay?”

“Fucker broke my nose.”

She chuckles weakly. “Alright, get down here.”

“Police might be here soon,” Frank points out like it’s a good enough reason for him to drive back to his place with what she imagines is his face covered in blood.

“Get down here,” she repeats in a tone that leaves no room for negotiation.

Not even five minutes later, there’s pounding at her door. She grabs her gun, walks to the door and checks through the peephole. 

His face is indeed covered in blood. She opens the door.

“If you look like that, what does the other guy look like?” she says with a smile. 

He steps inside and glances at her from head to toe, like he needs to be sure she isn’t injured, before answering. “Dead.”

She snorts as she closes and locks the door. “Yeah, I figured.” She slides the security of her gun back on and slides it back into her holster.

She directs him to the bathroom, shrugging off her jacket, hoodie and holster on the way, then removing the earpiece and putting it down next to piles of files and paperwork on her kitchen table.

“You injured anywhere other than your face?” she asks when they’re in the bathroom.

“Nah,” he says as he’s removing his bulletproof jacket. “Need help with yours?” he asks, motionning at her torso. 

She looks down at her own jacket, having almost forgotten it was there. 

“Sure.”

She can hear the whistling in his nose when he’s breathing and smell the copper emanating from him as he steps close to her and frees her from her vest and it feels weirdly intimate. Being close to him always is. They’re only really close like this in case of mortal danger, really: when he tackled her down to the floor of her previous apartment, or to the floor of the hotel kitchen when Wilson blew himself up, when he held her against him, her gun to her chin, her body an armor against the police’s bullets. That almost hug in the elevator afterwards. 

She tries not to think about the actual hug they shared in this very apartment, when he wasn’t injured or bruised or bleeding. 

She tries not to think about all of the almosts in the hospital room.

Instead, she takes a deep breath once the vest is off and tells Frank to sit on the bathtub edge. 

“I can take care of it,” he says quietly. 

“Look at yourself in a mirror and say that again.”

Frank huffs a laugh and winces immediately. Despite the blood, she can see where his nose is bending at an unnatural angle—or just more unnatural than usual. 

“I’m gonna let you set your nose because I have no idea how to do that, but the rest I’ll take care of, deal?”

Frank grimaces as he touches his nose. “Deal.” He walks to the sink and glances at his face. “Fuck,” he mutters. 

Karen nods. “Seeing you without bruises was too good to be true.”

He looks at her in the mirror with a smile at the corner of his—split—lips. “Very funny, Page.”

Then before she can think of anything to say, he leans his head forward, positions his hands on each side of his nose and sharply resets it with a grunt and a sickening crunching noise. Blood splatters down on the white porcelain. Karen reminds herself to breathe and not pass out. 

Frank takes a tentative deep breath. There’s no whistling this time.

“Fuck,” he mutters again.

She swallows the need to dry heave. “Clean your face, I’ll be right back.”

She goes to the closet in her bedroom and finds a couple of towels, ones she doesn’t mind getting blood on, and comes back to the bathroom. Frank’s shirt is on the floor and she can spot a couple of bruises starting to blossom on his naked torso. One particularly nasty looking one spreads over his ribs. 

“Sure your ribs are okay?” she asks as she eyes the purple blotch. She hands him the towels.

“Doesn’t hurt when I breathe. Should be fine,” he says as he looks down to his side. “Thanks,” he adds, taking the towels and patting at his now clean face.

She opens the cabinet behind the mirror and grabs the first aid kit. 

“Not as extensive as yours, but it should do. Sit.”

He does as he’s told and she washes her hands. She first surveys the scraps and gashes, looking for gravel or other foreign objects stuck in there. The gash on his nose and the one on his cheekbone seem to be the deepest, most likely needing to be closed with stitches. 

“How does it look?” he asks, his voice so low that she feels it more than she hears it.

She applies antibacterial ointment on the shallow scraps. “Bad.”

Frank snorts. “Yeah, beside that?”

“I’m gonna have to stitch you up.”

“Where?”

“Nose and cheekbone.”

“Fuck.” He sighs. “Don’t figure I get a say in this?”

“Nope.”

She gets the job done to the best of her abilities and Frank doesn’t even wince once, staying very still the entire time, even when she has her needle uncomfortably close to his eye. When she’s done, she rocks back on her heels and lets out a deep breath. 

“Done.”

He squeezes her hand, briefly, and lets it go. “Thanks.”

She pushes her hair back. “Yeah. Coffee?”

“Always.”

The police sirens reach the street just as the coffee machine roars to life. Frank grabs his rifle case and their armored jackets.

“Where do I stash them?”

Karen doesn’t think the cops are going to go knocking at every door of every building surrounding the street but she nods toward her bedroom door all the same.

“Closet.”

He disappears into the bedroom and she hears him yelp not even thirty seconds later.

“You okay?” she calls from the kitchen. 

He comes back empty handed, looking slightly disgruntled.

“Just met your cat.”

She snorts and takes out two mugs from the cupboard. “Don’t take it personally, he hates everyone.”

They sit at the kitchen table, away from the windows. Blue and red lights illuminate her curtains. She waits until Frank lifts the mug to his mouth to talk.

“You can’t go after them.”

He almost chokes on his coffee, but swiftly regains his composure. “Wanna say that again?”

She stares at him dead in the eyes. “You can’t go after them,” she repeats. She knows what she’s asking of him, knows how much he hates it. She still says it, though. 

His eyes narrow. “What the hell, Karen?” he mutters furiously. “You know what happens if I don’t? They’ll go after you, alright? Those guys ain’t gonna stop ‘til they’re dead or you are.”

She grips the handle of her mug. “I have a case, Frank. And I need them alive.”

Frank stands up, rubbing at his face as he starts pacing. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? Those people want you dead and you’re worried about—about your _case_?”

“Yes!” Karen almost shouts. “People hired us to do the right thing and that’s what I’ll do! We have no case if these guys are fucking dead!”

Frank scoffs. “What good is a case gonna do, uh? You gonna go to court? We both know that’s bullshit.”

Karen leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “Some people need the closure.”

“They’re dead, that’s the closure!”

She rolls her eyes. “Not everyone finds it in knowing the person who wrong them is gone. Some need the justice, the society to recognize publicly that what that person did was wrong. Some of us need them to be condemned for what they did, not just punished with a bullet to the head in a back alley.”

Frank stops moving, looking at her instead, his gaze unwavering like he’s searching for something—an answer, an explanation, a reason—in her eyes. 

“You don’t have to get it,” she says, her voice calm in a way her heart isn’t. “I’m just asking you.” She looks down at her coffee and takes a sip, quietly relieved when her hand doesn’t shake. “I know I can’t stop you if you really want to do it. But don’t go do it and say it was for my sake.”

Frank lets a sort of strangled noise out, like a wounded animal. He mumbles incoherently before sighing deeply and sitting back heavily on the chair. 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters as he grabs his mug. “How long?” he asks after swallowing some coffee. His finger is tapping against the porcelain.

She flicks her hair back, straightens from her slouch. “I don’t know.”

“They’re gonna be after you,” he says again, like it’s the only thing in his mind. It probably is. 

She shrugs. “You can camp on my roof if it makes you feel better.”

She looks up at him to find him staring at her. There’s a moment of utter stillness and silence before they both snort at the same time. Frank shakes his head, his lips twisted in a half-smile. 

“You’re a pain in the ass, Page.”

She huffs a laugh. “Thanks, you too.”

The police leave, the bodies disappearing in the coroner van, a couple of blood stains left on the asphalt the only proof anything happened there.

A line smoothes out on Frank’s forehead when the red and blue lights fade away from her curtains. 

“I should go.”

“Give me your number first,” she demands, holding out her phone to him. 

He dutifully punches it and gives the phone back to her. 

“Pete?” she asks as she notices the name he entered.

“That’s my civil identity,” he says, shrugging a little. “Pete Castiglione.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “That’s a terrible fucking name.”

He chuckles. “I know.”

As the door closes behind Frank, Karen lets out a deep exhale, leaning back in her chair as she does. She takes a moment to breathe, eyes closed. Before long though, she’s moving again, fetching her camera from her backpack and booting up her laptop.

She has a case to build and no time to lose. 

She sends the pictures and her report to Foggy, who calls her almost as soon as the email is sent.

“Are you okay?” is what he greets her with before she even has the time to say “hello.”

“Hi, Foggy. I’m fine, don’t worry.”

She hears him laugh disbelievingly. “Don’t worry? Don’t worry?! Are you kidding me? You call Matt in the middle of the night to tell him you have to lay low and I just heard from Brett that there was a shooting in your street, how am I supposed to not worry?!”

She winces. “Okay, now that you’re saying it like this, it sounds bad.”

“No shit.”

“But I’m fine. I swear.” She brings her hand to her side. She doesn’t need to go to the hospital, that means she’s fine. It’s just a scratch. Not even needed stitches. Peachy.

“Okay,” Foggy says, sounding slightly relieved. “What happened?”

Her mind reels for a second. She doesn’t want to lie to Foggy—or even Matt—about Frank. They have sworn to each other that they wouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other, not anymore. However, she doesn’t want to be explaining everything over the phone. You never know who could be listening.

“You might want to come over to my place. Bring Matt.”

“I thought your place was compromised?”

“Hopefully not anymore.”

“Well, that’s very reassuring.”

Foggy hangs up after assuring her that he’d be at her place with Matt in half an hour. 

She figures that taking a shower and getting out of Frank’s clothes might be a good idea before they arrive. She carefully removes the gauze and tape from her side. There’s no fresh blood on the bandage and the wound looks clean, no oozing or inflammation around it. 

She showers quickly, then towels herself dry and remakes the bandage before going to her bedroom to get dressed. She doesn’t bother making an effort in her appearance and grabs a pair of sweatpants. At least those fit. 

Her interphone buzzes just as she slips into her tank top and she hurries to her door. 

“Yep?” she says into the intercom.

Foggy’s voice comes in, tinny and crackling. “It’s us.”

She buzzes them in and shivers in the cold air of her apartment. The closest thing she can grab that isn’t her own leather jacket is Frank’s hoodie. She sighs as she imagines the face Matt is going to make, but puts it on all the same. 

Matt indeed grimaces when she opens her door and greets them with brief hugs. 

“Karen, what—” he starts.

“I’m gonna explain everything,” she cuts.

She notices Foggy frowning at her gun, in plain view in her holster on the couch. She takes Frank’s mug from the kitchen table, puts it down in the sink and grabs two clean mugs from her cupboard.

“Coffee?” she asks them.

“Sure,” Matt says as he sits down at the table—in Frank’s former seat. She wonders if he already knows that.

Foggy nods and sits as well.

She brings them their coffee and sits on the last chair. 

“Alright. Before you give yourself an aneurysm trying to figure out who was there, Matt, it was Frank.”

Foggy chokes on his coffee. “Castle?!”

“He helped me out last night. And this morning.” She doesn’t mean for her words to come out as defensive but they do. Which part of it is to avoid a sermon from Matt and which part is because she genuinely owes Frank her life, she doesn’t know. 

It doesn’t matter, though, Matt’s face looks exactly like how she was picturing it: like he just had to swallow vinegar. Before any of them can pelt her with questions, she tells them what happened at the warehouse, and then in her street. She keeps her injury and her fight with Frank for herself, though. They don’t need to hear it and she doesn’t want to share. 

“Is he really going to camp on your roof?” Foggy asks. 

“If we don’t deal with those people rapidly, he probably will, yes.”

“So nice of him to have kickstarted the investigation with those dead guys just in front of your door,” Foggy says. Matt’s face scrunches up even more. “Kinda reminds me of a cat, actually. Speaking of, where’s your monster?”

“Plotting our murders, surely,” Matt grumbles. He rubs the back of his hand and it’s only now that she sees some faint red lines across his skin. He clears his throat. “You should stay put until Brett has dealt with these guys. Between your pictures and the rest, it shouldn’t take long.”

Her phone rings not long after they leave. 

“That went well,” Frank’s voice says.

She frowns. “How do you know that?”

“You left the earpiece on.”

She brings a hand to her ear, which is empty, before spotting the earpiece, next to the clutter on her kitchen table. 

“What’s the range of that thing—” she starts asking before stopping. “Are you on my roof?”

“You said I could.”

She rolls her eyes. “I won’t bring you coffee up there.”


End file.
